DemoCampHamilton6

Joel (@joelauge) is the CEO and Co-Founder of HitGrab Inc, a leader in social gaming. In March of 2008, HitGrab created MouseHunt, which is now one of the most successful (in terms of user engagement) games on Facebook. HitGrab has also created LevynLight, a ‘light’ fantasy RPG that’s focused on simplicity, allowing you to jump in at anytime and have quick bursts of fun throughout the day!

The demo line-up has yet to be finalized, but expect to see at least one of the student startups that are starting to come out of McMaster (such as DormBooth). Normally DemoCampHamilton events are scheduled 2-4 months apart… but after seeing firsthand during instruction of a UI design course how skilled and passionate some McMaster students are about game development, and after Joel agreed to keynote the event, an exception had to be made!

The Hamilton tech scene is set to pick up some steam over the next few months. Michael Canton (@valleytownmedia) and Tim Miron (@TJMiron) are producing a web series (#TechTalk4HamOnt) to spotlight the community. Kik Messenger platform evangelist Yuriy Blokhin (@yblokhin) will keynote Leap into Startup Weekend on February 29th – the ticket sale launch party for next April’s Startup Weekend. The city’s Open Data movement is planning The Bay Hackathon for March 2nd to March 4th. The successful eHealth\mHealth focused AppsForHealth conference will repeat in May 2012. StartupDrinks is now occurring every month. At least a couple people at DemoCampHamilton5 are planning to step up to the mic between demos to try to get the ball rolling on Codeacademy meetups and other community activities.

Anyone in the Southern Ontario region interested in our DemoCamp or these other activities is always welcome to come to Hamilton!

DemoCampHamilton2 occurred Friday May 27th, 2011 at Mohawk College in conjunction with the AppsForHealth 2011 conference. The event was hosted by Software Hamilton and sponsored and supported by the great folks at Innovation Factory and Mohawk College. The combination of an excellent keynote, demos and audience turned out to be too hot for the fire alarms at Mohawk!

Mic Berman kicked off the event with an excellent keynote focused on sharing her startup expertise. The quality of the discussion the talk generated was one of the highlights of the evening, perhaps given the high level of interest in fostering a startup culture in the Hamilton software community. The talk was described perfectly in a #DCH tweet as “inspiring and grounding at the same time”.

Cristina Calder of FluidMedia started off the demos by showing us Rendering Exchange – a web-based, crowd-sourced platform that connects graphic designers with commercial interior manufacturers, architects and interior designers to provide high-quality, photo-realistic room scene images for use in sales and planning.

DemoCampHamilton audience favourite “mad inventor” Dan Zen took audience interactivity to new heights with his demo of Touchy – a smartphone game where two players, each with mobile devices, try to touch the other player’s screen while protecting their own. When two people play the game it creates a Twister-like physical spectacle that is as fun to watch as it is to play. Dan demoed Touchy by having the entire audience play “Touchy” at once by having us try to touch the business card of the DemoCamp-er sitting next to us while protecting our own!

Adam Caromicoli and Doris Bean of Indellient Inc. were up next to demo Inktronic – a Digital Pen based collaboration tool that simplifies workflow involving graphical content for the architectural, engineering and construction industries.

After a forced break for what was dubbed the “great fire alarm of DemoCampHamilton2″, Joey Coleman of Open Hamilton and Nik Garkusha of Open Halton talked about the Open Data movement occurring across Canada and demoed what software the Open Hamilton branch of the movement has developed thus far.

The final demo was done by two McMaster University computer science students, Gavin Schulz and Zaahir Moolla, who demoed their new service MealDeck which allows restaurants to easily create a cross-platform mobile website. Student entrepreneurism is something we want to see more of in Hamilton and the professionalism and courage these two showed by putting themselves and their service out there for criticism was widely praised – watch out for these guys!

The AppsForHealth 2011 conference itself was a huge success, you can check out the mobile apps that the students devised here. Expect the next DemoCampHamilton at McMaster in September, but in the meantime we will be having the first Software Hamilton Pub Night this June 28th.

May and June are busy months. There are a few friends and colleagues that continue to leverage the DemoCamp brand to help engage entrepreneurs, developers, code monkeys, hackers, marketers and others. We borrowed the 6 minute format from Demo. Rather than a chinwag about new technology or industry happenings, what better way than to spend 6 minutes and have someone show you want they’ve built. It forces way from the keyboards and out into the real world. It is a strange mix of presentations, improv and being social. It’s about being connected, being proud of what you’ve been working, and having the opportunity to meet others in the community with similar interests.

The focus in Toronto has been on startups. Because this is my interest. Others are free to shape event and the format to their locale. The question of “what is your business model?” is such a silly question. Because some of the coolest presentations – hacking digital cameras – are closer to hobbies or performance art. I love the mix of new businesses, emerging technology explorations, and something closer to Maker Faire demos.

My advice, is if you are interested in seeing the great startups, hackers and makers in your city are doing you should make sure you check out a DemoCamp. And encourage Brydon and Kevin to keep doing this for their own entertainment and connection. Maybe you might want to help out

Guelph

The invited speaker is Mike McDerment, CEO and co-founder ofFreshbooks in Toronto. Mike’s a serial entrepreneur who spends a lot of time giving back to the wider community by speaking at various tech conferences as well as lecturing at Humber College. He is also a founder of Toronto based Mesh Conference. After the keynote there are 4-6 demos followed by a live band. This is a completely open event, however, there is a donation ticket to help out starving musicians and the cost of providing entertainment.

Toronto

The invited speaker is Howard Lindzon, CEO and cofounder of StockTwits in San Diego. He was one of my favourite speakers at StartupEmpire back in 2008. Howard is sharing his love of startups and early stage entrepreneurs across Canada this summer. If you miss him at DemoCamp, make sure you catch him at StartupFestival in Montreal or Grow Conference in Vancouver. The demo lineup and tickets are being finalized this week.